Preliminary Validation of Mixed-Pixel Clumping Index in the Arid and Semi-Arid Region, Western China

In this paper, the 1 km Mixed Pixel Clumping Index (MPCI) was calculated using the 30 m HJ-IA11B CCD data in the arid and semi-arid region, Western China. To validate the result, an indirect validation method was proposed. In this method, the 1 km effective LAI was retrieved from the satellite data using the PROSAIL model first, and then corrected to the true LAI with the MPCI data. The comparison between the retrieved true LAI and the MODIS product shows a significant improvement relative to the effective LAI. The correlation R2 rise from 0.52 to 0.70 and the RMSE falls from 0.58 to 0.42. It indicates that the MPCI calculation is reasonable and valid for LAI retrieval from the satellite data.